It is generally desirable to monitor operation and performance of a hearing prosthesis during normal use of the hearing prosthesis. This may be accomplished by logging or recording various types of data, which are related to the operation, and performance of the hearing prosthesis while in use.
A hearing aid with a data logging capability is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,972,487 in the form of a multi-program digitally programmable hearing aid that includes a data logging circuit. The data logging circuit is utilized to record a history of user-selected events such as changes between different preset listening programs or changes between different signal processing strategies. Furthermore, individual utilization periods of each of these preset listening programs may be recorded by the data logging circuit.
WO 01/54456 discloses another hearing aid with data logging capability wherein statistical data, which characterize physical or psychological properties of the environments in which use of the hearing aid is desired, are collected. The data may be collected prior to the wearer's first use of the hearing aid, or collected during normal use of the hearing aid.
The functionality of these prior art hearing aids that both have data logging capabilities can, however, be improved in accordance with the methodology of present invention by recording input signal data in combination with hearing prosthesis variable(s), such as preset program selections, volume control adjustments and/or values and states of algorithm parameters of a predetermined digital signal processing algorithm.